This invention relates generally to improvements in electronic control of mechanical, electro-mechanical and similar apparatus and, more particularly, to a novel control system for a vending machine or the like.
While the present invention is suitable for controlling any of a broad variety of mechanical or electro-mechanical devices, it will hereinafter be described embodied as a control system for a vending machine of the type having a number of individually selectable articles. It will be understood, however, that the principles of the present invention are similarly applicable to other, similar devices, for example, to a coin-operated phonograph or "jukebox".
Until relatively recently, control systems for vending or like machines have included primarily mechanical and electromechanical elements such as levers, relays, cams, springs and the like. More recently, however, control systems have been proposed utilizing various solid state electronic components such as diodes, transistors and integrated circuits. While offering increasingly better reliability and cost effectiveness, such electronic control systems have not heretofore possessed a great deal of flexibility. For example, greater flexibility would be advantageous in the acceptance of different types of monetary units, the setting of credit or price levels for vending of different articles, or the handling of requests for refunds or change. While all of these functions have generally been available to some extent, increased flexibility in these areas has generally meant a proliferation of components, often resulting in redundancy of parts and an attendant decrease in the reliability of the control system as well as unacceptable increases in the cost thereof.
However, with the advent of advanced integrated circuit technology, increased flexibility and improved capabilities of such a control system, without the heretofore attendant problems of undue proliferation of electronic components, has become possible.
Accordingly, the present invention is concerned with the provision of a greatly simplified control system for a vending machine, which surprisingly offers far greater flexbility than heretofore known control systems. For example, the control system in accordance with the present invention readily accommodates a plurality of vendable articles or items at many different prices, while also receiving coins or bills of a plurality of different denominations. The control system of the invention is further readily alterable by the user to change the prices of one or more articles to be vended as desired, as well as to accept monetary units (i.e. coins or bills) of different values or in a different monetary system.